184 WHALING 



period, added his own observations for his own satisfaction and 

 for the benefit of those who were to come after him. 



Here are two shoals ''seen by Captain Nicholson in 1818" 

 and the note ''The Minerva whaler wrecked here 1813." Here 

 are groups significantly named the ''Low Isles," and "Danger- 

 ous Archipelago." Here are the islands "S. Pablo doubtful," 

 "St. Elmo doubtful"; and here, "Islands according to the 

 Spaniards seen also in 1825," "Land seen in 1823 by Capt 

 Mitchell," "St. Paul's I. very doubtful." Most significant of 

 all is a note, "The Gallapagos Islands are said by Captains Hall, 

 Kinsenstern, and others to lie from 14 to 30 miles more to the 

 eastward than they are placed in this chart." 



On the chart are even drawn by hand islands that appear to 

 have been unknown when it was printed ; and my own old navi- 

 gator, having landed on an islet far at sea, scrawled beside it the 

 intensely practical note : ' ' Low and no pigs. Plenty of Fruit and 

 Veg's." 



On this chart, which was in use in the 1830's, Baring's Island, 

 the scene of that wild battle for the Awashonks, duly appears 

 in latitude 5° 35' N., longitude 168° 13' E. Many leagues to the 

 north the Baltick Chain stretches away; to the northeast and 

 east lies the Radack Chain ; and there are others several degrees 

 to the southeast, and within a few hundred miles of Baring's 

 Island are islands and shoals marked with the names of such 

 gallant adventurers as Anson, Byron, Gilbert, De Puyster, 

 de la Perouse, and Bougainville, and many another. 



It is hard, to-day, when virtually every part of every sea is 

 well known, and we have at our command the vast store of in- 

 formation that the exploring whalemen themselves brought 

 home, to realize how mysterious, even a mere hundred years ago, 

 those seas were, and what problems in navigation confronted 

 Captain Silas Jones, placed by circumstances and courage in 

 command of a ship during his second voyage and at the age of 

 twenty-one years. 



But there was the enemy without and the enemy within. On 

 Sunday, November 6, 1842, the ship Sharon of Martha's Vine- 



